Every day at all hours, 12-year-old Trim is on call. Working at MacDill Air Force Base is serious stuff, and Trim likes to be where there's action.
And that's with the birds.
Trim, a border collie, was hired by MacDill safety officials a few years ago to scare feathered pests away from incoming or outgoing planes. Big birds or small-bird flocks can dent wings and get caught inside engines. Trim, who instinctively likes to chase things, doesn't let the birds get comfortable.
"Trim has found her call in life," said Rebecca Ryan, the owner of Flyaway Farm and Kennels, a company that deploys bird-chasing dogs to military bases, commercial airports and golf courses.
Ryan began training collies to herd sheep and found that herding birds wasn't much different. Her dogs now work at several bases around the country.
Trim is the only canine member of MacDill's Bird Aircraft Strike Hazard forces, known as BASH. Before the base hired her, officials used noisemakers to scare birds away. But the creatures weren't bird-brained. They got used to the routine and began ignoring the big booms, said Maj. David Eisenbrey, head of the base's safety office.
Not so with the pooch patrol.
Trim and partner Jon Gilbert, MacDill's BASH program manager, live on base. Gilbert says they work about 60 hours a week. But he says the time is worth it. If an errant bird slams into a plane at the wrong time, it could be deadly.
"We take it all in fun," Gilbert said. "But there's an alternate aspect. It's pretty much life and death. It comes down to that."
Trim came to MacDill trained to herd, the only requirement for the job. She's not interested in hunting, but the birds don't know that.
When Trim swoops across the runway on Gilbert's orders, birds take to the sky and scatter. And Trim looks back at Gilbert for the next command.
She wasn't always so diligent.
Trim was rescued from a puppy mill at 4-weeks-old by a good friend of Ryan, Trim's trainer. Because Trim was separated from her mother too early, she latched on to her owner and was aggressive toward anyone who came between them. When Trim bit the woman's baby, taking off a piece of his ear, the woman gave the dog to Ryan.
At first, Trim was poorly behaved and wouldn't stay in a kennel. She refused to interact with other dogs and ignored Ryan.
Then she met the birds.
When Ryan saw how Trim was drawn to the mallards in her backyard pond, she started training the dog to herd. She was soon ready for duty.
Trim is still fiercely independent and doesn't like kids or other dogs, Ryan said, but there have been no complaints from the Air Force.
"She may not be the perfect dog,'' Ryan said, "but working-wise, she's amazing."
E-mail Kim Wilmath at kwilmath(at)sptimes.com.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service www.scrippsnews.com)
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